Background: NHS case note data are a potential source of practice-based evidence which could be used to investigate the effectiveness of different interventions for individuals with a range of speech, language and communication needs. Consistency in pre- and post-intervention data as well as the collection of relevant variables would need to be…

Background: Children with persistent speech disorder (PSD) are at higher risk of difficulties with literacy, with some evidence suggesting an association with poorer educational attainment. However, studies to date have either used small clinical samples, which exclude children who have not been referred to clinical services, or relied on…

Background: Several studies have suggested that practitioners hold speech and language therapy (SLT) practice as tacit and consequently it is difficult for the therapist to describe. The current study uses a range of knowledge elicitation (KE) approaches, a technique not used before in SLT, as a way of accessing this tacit knowledge. There is…

Background: Efforts to increase the evidence base in speech and language therapy are often limited by methodological factors that have restricted the strength of the evidence to the lower levels of the evidence hierarchy. Where higher graded studies, such as randomized controlled trials, have been carried out, it has sometimes been difficult to…

Early childhood educators are frequently called on to support preschool-aged children with speech sound disorders and to engage these children in activities that target their speech production. This study explored factors that acted as facilitators and/or barriers to the provision of computer-based support for children with speech sound disorders…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine prevalence and predictors of persistent speech sound disorder (SSD) in children aged 8 years after disregarding children presenting solely with common clinical distortions (i.e., residual errors). Method: Data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (Boyd et al., 2012) were used.…

Speech sound disorders are a common communication difficulty in preschool children. Teachers indicate difficulty identifying and supporting these children. The aim of this research was to describe speech and language characteristics of children identified by their parents and/or teachers as having possible communication concerns. 275 Australian 4-…

This article reports a series of interviews with education and health practitioners. The aims were to identify interventions used in practice with children with speech, language and communication needs, to explore explanations for the choice of intervention and to identify the ways that outcomes were measured. Participants (n = 61) included…